Blood Burn
by liftedlorax
Summary: Veronica kills Cassidy. Goes AU in the second season finale.


**Title:** Blood Burn  
**Author:** Allie  
**Pairing/Characters:** Veronica, Logan, Cassidy, Mac

**Word Count:** 1,430  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** (You're not a killer, Veronica.) Veronica kills Cassidy.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own VM

**Spoilers/Warnings:** AU during the second season finale, so spoilers up to there, but nothing from the third season at all. Language, violence, and, in case you couldn't guess, character death.

**A/N:**Yeah, don't ask where this came from, I have no idea. And I'm back to making you guys want to kill yourselves, just FYI. This is sad. Like, it made me sad to write it. Plus it's the shortest thing I've ever posted here. Enjoy!

Fire and water are supposed to cancel each other out, but as tears drip down her face she can't tell the difference. An explosion has just rippled through the stars and painted her father's blood across the sky, and she's burning, burning, burning inside, like she's ready to explode, too. Logan's hands are shaking in front of her, reaching for the gun, saying words that don't reach her ears, and she just wants him to fucking _move _so she can do this and things can be okay again.

"_You're not a killer, Veronica."_

She doesn't say move again; she's too angry to speak, too broken and anguished. Instead, she points the gun to the left of Logan and fires; the shot shocks him and makes him flinch away, and she doesn't waste any time in pointing it back to where Cassidy stands.

The blood spatter doesn't reach her. It soaks into the concrete of the roof, soaks into Logan's clothes as he wordlessly kneels by the broken body. Veronica doesn't drop the gun; the heat of it is burning into her skin. She thinks about her father, thinks about whether or not he had killed like this before, about whether or not it burned like this.

Veronica thinks about how her father died, then, and she lets out a harsh sob that almost completely overtakes Logan's broken, whispered, _"Beaver." _

The boy's real name echoes around the rooftop, like a memory.

* * *

He covers for her, talks to the police first and begs her to go along with any story he comes up with. Veronica doesn't care. She's not thinking about what might happen to her, about prison or judgment or hell. She's thinking about the way Mac's looking at her right now—Mac, who's just heard, who was told everything while she shivered in the air-conditioned hotel room air.

She can't place the look—she's having a hard time placing anything right now, because her father is dead and so is Cassidy and killing him didn't make it okay. She's not sure right now that anything can ever make it okay—her father is everything, and without everything, there's nothing, and that's not okay.

Logan's painted the story like she's a hero—like he was fighting with Cassidy, and she took the shot to save his life. She doesn't want that—doesn't need it, not anymore. There's no point anymore. But Logan's voice is hollow, and his eyes are swimming with constant tears, and he's barely keeping from cracking open right in front of everyone, so she nods and agrees and backs the story up.

It's a long night of police reports and statements, of emotions and heartbreak—but after night comes morning, and with morning comes news. Her father, alive, and his father, dead—they find out within minutes of each other, though she doesn't know that until later. And beyond the relief, beyond the amazing feeling of being in her father's arms again, there is something else.

"_He killed my father!"_

The warmth of Keith's embrace burns, and she was wrong.

* * *

It was the right thing to do.

That's what she tells herself to get through the days. That's how she fights the guilt off, as she lies to her father, keeps the charade up, keeps Logan's story straight.

He was a murderer. A mass murderer. He raped her. He killed her father, in thought, if not in action. There was no reason for her _not _to kill him.

"_You're not a killer, Veronica."_

That reason doesn't matter anymore, because it's not true.

Logan is breaking in half, slowly but surely. She sees it in the way he avoids her just as much as she seeks him out.

He needs that night to be erased just as much she needs it to be confirmed. He is the only one that needs to be convinced that she did the right thing, the only one that matters right now. Every time she brings it up, voice sure and steady as his hands are shaky (because she is Veronica Mars, after all, and she doesn't let something like this just take her down, and it was the right thing to do, dammit), he breaks a little bit more, but she needs this. She needs him to believe in her again.

She thinks he hates her a little bit, but he loves her so much more, she thinks that too. And she thinks he hates himself for loving her, as he ducks his head and begs Dick to talk to him again.

It was the right thing to do. He has to believe that.

(A voice in her head tells her that she should believe it first.)

**

* * *

**

Cassidy was a murderer.

She can't understand how Mac can mourn him, how Mac can be so angry at her, so hurt. She's trying to understand, really, she is, but she can't deal with this. She's losing Logan—and that's turning out to be a bigger loss than she'd ever admit—and she can't lose Mac, too. Not because of him. Veronica is going to survive this, and she's going to bring all her loved ones through it with her. She is not going to lose anyone else to that monster.

"_He raped me!" _

She thinks about bringing this up with Mac, about throwing that at her and getting her to excuse away _that _little gem. But her blood burns just thinking about it, thinking about hurting Mac like that, and she can't.

But Mac isn't making this easy. Mac is crying now, looking at her that same way she was that terrible night, and it's like she knows, somehow. Knows that Logan's story is bullshit, that there was no real self-defense, that she killed Cassidy in cold blood just like he killed all those people.

He was a murderer, she reminds Mac, like she forgot, but that only makes the brunette angrier. Veronica's been telling her about that night, listing the reasons and the circumstances, explaining things, because that's the only way she's going to convince. If she lays this out, Mac will know—there are only two sides here, and Veronica's on the good side and Cassidy was on the bad side, and she has to understand that.

And when she finally leaves that day, she tries desperately to pretend that Mac's anguished words don't burn inside her veins.

"_He was just a **boy**."_

**

* * *

**

Three days, and she'll be in New York with her father, and she knows then that everything will be okay. It has to be. The mystery's solved (dead) and her dad is alive, and there's no reason for anything not to be okay now.

Veronica realizes she's holding back a sob and scolds herself mentally. Everything is going to be okay. She's never wrong, and she just wishes Logan would believe that.

(She wishes she would fucking believe that.)

**

* * *

**

Night before she's set to go to New York, and she's pissed. Logan finally called, after days of dodging her left and right, and he wants to meet _there, _of all places. So she's pissed. But she's going, because she's just grateful that he's talking to her, and maybe this is everything falling into place. Maybe this is what's going to make everything okay again.

She doesn't remember the rooftop being so high, but seeing Logan near the low wall that separates concrete floor from nothingness just makes her dizzy with the height of it. She asks Logan to come away from there, and when he doesn't, she joins him there, eyes blazing. And he starts apologizing.

In the beginning, she knows he's apologizing to her. But he's mumbling and crying, too, wet, silent tears that she knows must burn like fire. And slowly his mumblings change—he's not just apologizing to her, but to Dick, to Mac, to his mom, to Lilly, to Duncan, to _Beaver. _She reaches out to him, asks him to stop. She lies to him, lies to herself, _"Everything is going to be okay."_

Logan stares at Veronica, then, drinking her in, eyes studying every little bit of her. And then he's wrenching out of her grasp, and hoisting himself up, up, onto the wall. She gasps, whispers out a _"Logan, no!" _and he looks at her again.

"_Why not?"_

He doesn't wait for an answer.

On her knees, sobs coming out like a downpour, and water and fire are supposed to cancel each other out, but not in grief.

"_Why not?"_

The reasons echo around the rooftop, like a memory.


End file.
